Bedroom Decorating Ideas: Window Treatments

The finishing touch on your bedroom: window treatments

Slide 1 Of Bedroom Decorating Ideas: Window Treatments

Dressing your bedroom windows is decorating at its most intimate. Window treatments are foundational to any room’s decorating. And in the private retreat of the bedroom, window dressings reveal our attitude on everything from privacy to pampering. Puddling clouds of sheers and streamlined Roman shades, for example, point to two very different personalities.

A Curvy Bedroom Window Cornice
In this serene master bedroom walled with pale, hand-painted tone-on-tone stripes, the rigid rectangle of the window is softened with a scalloped cornice. This window treatment is frankly feminine, and it literally shapes the way the owner views the world outside. White-painted wooden blinds ensure privacy.

A three-layered window treatment in the master bedroom at this D.C. Design House cuts no corners on elegance. The design begins with a scalloped valance in a creamy silk, and continues to soft-flowing panels in the same swishy silk. Both the valance and panels are finished with a blue band and silk passementerie trim. Underneath it all are Roman shades in the same material.

A blue band and silk passementerie trim were sewn together, then applied to the edges of the drapery panels for a fine finish. The robin’s egg blue trim matches the paint color on the walls, integrating the creamy silk curtains into the room and making sense of the palette.

When just one curtain pattern presents a tough choice, think twice. Two favorite fabrics decorate the windows of the master bedroom in this Long Island home. The all-cotton curtains, heavy enough to block the sun, are hung as four panels in two alternating patterns of fabric. The unexpected variance of pattern adds a kicky, light-hearted mood appropriate for a home at the water’s edge. Mixing patterns is also a good solution for dressing a long wall of windows without risking redundancy.

French doors are found in more and more bedrooms, where privacy is non-negotiable. So how to cover these airy architectural assets when it’s lights out? This master bedroom’s solution is to extend the curtain rod the entire length of the room, well beyond the doors themselves. When the natural light and views are desired, the curtains are pulled past the doors, covering only the walls.

Windows and walls receive identical treatment in this Texas lake house bedroom tented in African ticking. The fabric’s stripe hangs vertically on the window panels and also as the wall covering. A short valance of vertical stripes finished at the bottom with the same fabric running horizontally skims across the top of the windows and continues along the tops of the walls, uninterrupted, for a tented look. The idea of a tent is completed with the same African ticking covering the ceiling.

Window seats are charming additions to any room, instantly amping up character. Often they’re located in public rooms where privacy isn’t important and window treatments aren’t an issue. But in the bedroom, where privacy is essential, the window seat can literally stand in the way. The solution in this master bedroom is to bring the window treatment out from the wall to drape the entire window seat. When the drapery is open, the window and views are unimpaired with cluttering curtains. When it’s closed, privacy is all wrapped up.

A second viable option to dressing a bedroom window that’s outfitted with a window seat is to go minimal. This only works, however, when privacy isn’t a consideration. In this bedroom at the American Red Cross Showhouse in Palm Beach, the conversation area doesn’t demand privacy, so a girly ruffled and swagged valance is the only dressing needed. It gives the space a fine finish without compromising the views. Plus, the valance won’t be in the way when a catnap is called for.

In this bedroom in the American Red Cross Showhouse in Palm Beach, a pair of closets on either side of the bed feature French doors backed with checked fabric panels. The window treatments suggest an outdoors area beyond, increasing the allure of the space. The checked fabric is repeated on the French bench at the foot of the bed.

A loft bedroom in a 1928 log cabin in the Appalachian foothills of North Carolina demanded a window treatment that could hold its own with the room’s sturdy split-log walls. Graphic patterns in bold red and white refuse to shy away from the no-nonsense past, while taking the design into the future. The window is paneled with a leafy pattern that is also used on the bed pillows. A red-and-white striped cornice is repeated with a privacy-ensuring striped Roman shade.

A traditional master bedroom designed in a British Colonial style carries the airy island theme to the window treatments. The clean-swept look of the all-white walls and paneled high-pitch ceiling continues at the windows with white puddling sheers. Shirred for depth, the gauzy panels drop from simple iron road mounted a couple of inches above the windows. Woven bamboo shades add an organic element that’s a characteristic of campaign style, while ensuring privacy. The lightness of the window treatment underscores the contrast of the white room and the dark four-poster bed, which is copied from an Indonesian antique.

A girlie coral palette and soft silk textures may not pass muster with the mister for the master, but they announce a warm welcome in the guest room and everybody’s happy. This design goes glam with a tufted Lucite bench covered in the same color of fabric as the classic silk drapery panels and valance. Understated at first glance, the voluminous solid-color curtain panels are discreet indulgences.

Amazing how the flow of fabric can dramatize a design. The stone-colored drapery panels in this master bedroom, coupled with the room’s free-flowing bed curtains, are the single-most important design elements. The window treatments puddle to the floor and flair out like ball gowns, bringing contour to the quiet design.